Ok Jade, I'll ask a question that I've long wanted to ask about a Bryan Dollar...
BillJones
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From Jade Coin:
<< <i>Ask the question that you have long wanted to ask. Post images of your coins. >>
This is not a coin, but it's coin related. During the hotly contested presidential election of 1896, Democrat William Jennings Bryan ran on the platform of "free silver." What that meant was that Bryan wanted the U.S. Mint to accept silver from companies and private individuals and coin it into unlimited quantities of silver coinage at a ratio of 16 parts equal in value to 1 part of gold (“16 to 1”). Bryan told his supporters and the electorate that his plan would bring prosperity to all in the wake of the Panic of 1893, which had been a very deep economic depression.
What Bryan and his supporters were really calling for was a massive increase in the money supply, which would lead to high inflation. That way farmers and others who owed money could pay it back in dollars that were worth less. Naturally bankers and those who were holding the debt opposed this because they wanted to be paid in dollars that had about the same buying power. To preserve that buying power, they supported the gold standard.
Many campaign items were issued that year. Some of them ridiculed Bryan’s position by showing how big a silver dollar had to be to be worth a dollar. Others made a total satire of Bryan’s ideas by issuing copies of U.S. silver dollars that were massive in size. The fact that these pieces were made of lead furthered the joke.
Here’s an example of a satirical Bryan Dollar. This one is 89 mm in diameter and 3 and ½ mm thick. As these things go, this one is well executed.
One the reverse you will see two acronyms, “NIT and “ABER.” I know that “NIT” means “Not In Trust,” which is a take-off on the motto, “In God we trust.” I have yet to find anyone who knows what “ABER” means however. Does anyone out there have any ideas? Let’s give it a go.
BTW this piece is listed in Zerbe as #90 and in the new book by Fred Schornstein as # 817
<< <i>Ask the question that you have long wanted to ask. Post images of your coins. >>
This is not a coin, but it's coin related. During the hotly contested presidential election of 1896, Democrat William Jennings Bryan ran on the platform of "free silver." What that meant was that Bryan wanted the U.S. Mint to accept silver from companies and private individuals and coin it into unlimited quantities of silver coinage at a ratio of 16 parts equal in value to 1 part of gold (“16 to 1”). Bryan told his supporters and the electorate that his plan would bring prosperity to all in the wake of the Panic of 1893, which had been a very deep economic depression.
What Bryan and his supporters were really calling for was a massive increase in the money supply, which would lead to high inflation. That way farmers and others who owed money could pay it back in dollars that were worth less. Naturally bankers and those who were holding the debt opposed this because they wanted to be paid in dollars that had about the same buying power. To preserve that buying power, they supported the gold standard.
Many campaign items were issued that year. Some of them ridiculed Bryan’s position by showing how big a silver dollar had to be to be worth a dollar. Others made a total satire of Bryan’s ideas by issuing copies of U.S. silver dollars that were massive in size. The fact that these pieces were made of lead furthered the joke.
Here’s an example of a satirical Bryan Dollar. This one is 89 mm in diameter and 3 and ½ mm thick. As these things go, this one is well executed.
One the reverse you will see two acronyms, “NIT and “ABER.” I know that “NIT” means “Not In Trust,” which is a take-off on the motto, “In God we trust.” I have yet to find anyone who knows what “ABER” means however. Does anyone out there have any ideas? Let’s give it a go.
BTW this piece is listed in Zerbe as #90 and in the new book by Fred Schornstein as # 817
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
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Now that is COOL. I have never seen that item before.
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Also one of WJB's female ancestor's had the maiden name of Aber. Doubt that he was honoring her here however.
Looks like a really well done Morgan morph
Check out some of my 1794 Large Cents on www.coingallery.org
You reminded me that I have a very very very large Bryan metal token (1896 16:1). I will try to find it, and show it on the forum. I have no idea when or how I received it except it is catalogued in the tattered log of my childhood ( not 1896 :-).
Oh the special memories of childhood collections.
ABeR also stands for alternativ bus reisen in German, meaning "alternatively bus travel". Don't think this is relative. My personal guess is "A Brass-Eared Round".
But you say made of lead so this doesn't fit.
The morgan reverse has in god we trust with the int used for that.
It has one dollar this has 16-1.
The only thing left is united states of america.
Perhaps aber was just something that sounded like amer.
however, not in trust?
K S
I have no idea of the answer but thanks for sharing an interesting piece of history with us.
Since some of you like this one, I'll post some more Bryan money over the next week or so. It is interesting stuff, and the history of that campaign is great for coin collectors. It was the one presidental race where our coinage took center stage as THE major issue.
Can anyone tell me about it? Joe
The left side of the reverse made reference to Bryan's folly without saying so and the right side made reference to Coinage Not In Trust without saying so. Ironically, Theodore Roosevelt, who ran and won on the President McKinley re-election ticket in 1900 later took up the crusade against putting the motto IN GOD WE TRUST on our coinage.
Now the question remains as to whether the NIT referred to Bryan being godless in IN GOD WE TRUST or Bryan backing currencybacked by the maligned silver and not the sacred gold bullion reserves which the Republicans favored. I happen to think it was the latter but it was purposely left vague enough to have a double meaning just like ABER had. Even my great-grandfather thought NIT meant that NIT meant that Bryan was godless. He barely spoke English in 1896 having immigrated from Europe a few years before.
But then again, it would also be interesting to show the swivel brass piece to show the stooped low eagle versus the proud eagle that the Republicans successfully used to explain Bryan's folly which they called Bryanarchy in which Bryan favored silver as a backing for our currency.
Your token is the Democrats retort against the Republicans crusade against Bryan(anarchy). McKinley was too popular a President in 1899 and 1900 to attack so the Democrats attacked Mark Hanna, also known as Hank, instead. Interestingly it was a war of the New York City business interests (Democrats) against the Cleveland, Ohio business interests (Republicans). Note that Cleveland, Ohio was gaining in economic power vis a vis New York City in the late 1890's.
(Mark) Hanna, known as Hank resigned as Chairman of the Republican National Committee to take on the job of campaign manager of the McKinley Presidential bid in 1896. Mark Hanna was also McKinley's campaign manager for Governor of Ohio in 1891 and 1893 which were both successful.
Here is a great excerpt from the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Mark A. Hanna, born Marcus Alonzo Hanna (September 24, 1837–February 15, 1904) was an industrialist and Republican politician from Ohio. He rose to fame as the campaign manager of the successful Republican Presidential candidate William McKinley in the U.S. Presidential election of 1896, in what is considered the forerunner of the modern political campaign, and subsequently became one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate.
Moving to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1844, the young Hanna became involved in numerous unsuccessful business ventures. He served as a quartermaster in the U.S. Army during the Civil War, and was always close to veterans' organizations. (It is not true that he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor--that was an unrelated Marcus Hanna.) After 1867 he became rich as a shipper and broker serving the coal and iron industries. Cleveland was emerging as a major transhipping point between the Great Lakes ore deposits and the mills of eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, and Hanna loved making deals and bargains on a daily basis over a wide range of products and services. Hanna was one of the few industrialists fascinated less by profits than by the outdoor spectacle and indoor bargaining of politics.
Hanna made a transition into politics during the 1880s and in 1888, he managed Ohio Senator John Sherman's unsuccessful effort to gain the Republican presidential nomination. Hanna, who had helped William McKinley win the 1891 and 1893 elections for Governor of Ohio, became his chief advisor.
When McKinley won the 1896 Republican nomination for president, Hanna, as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, raised an unprecedented $3.5 million for McKinley's campaign for the gold standard, high tariffs, high wages, pluralism and renewed prosperity. Most of the money came from corporations who feared that William Jennings Bryan's more radical Free Silver policy would ruin the entire economy. By October the Democrats realized they were losing on the money issue and targeted Hanna as the arch-villain who threatened to put corporate interests ahead of the national interest. As McKinley was highly likeable, Hanna became a target of newspapers and Democrats, especially William Randolph Hearst and his New York Journal.
Hanna's campaign employed 1,400 people, who concentrated a flood of pamphlets, leaflets, posters, and stump speakers. McKinley defeated Bryan by an electoral vote of 271 to 176. At the time, it was the most expensive campaign ever in U.S. politics, with the McKinley campaign outspending Bryan's by nearly 12 to 1. Today it is considered the forerunner of the modern political campaign for its adroit use of publicity, its overall national plan, its strategic use of issues, and especially the candidate's own speech making.
Once elected, McKinley appointed Senator Sherman to his Cabinet, and Hanna was elected in March of 1897 to fill the remainder of that term, and then re-elected to the subsequent term. As the economy recovered and international triumphs against Spain bolstered McKinley's popularity, the 1900 rematch was an easy victory for Hanna. Taking his place in the Senate, he came out from McKinley's shadow and played an influential role in terms of selecting the Panama route for a canal. More important Hanna worked with the Civic Federation as a concilator regarding labor strife. He succeeded to a considerable extent in attracting labor unions into the Republican fold and heading off major strikes that would be not only economically damaging but politically and socially divisive.
Hanna and Roosevelt
Hanna and Theodore Roosevelt had been allies when they met in 1884, but they became rivals, initially due to their disagreement about the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt strongly favored war with Spain; Hanna resisted war until public opinion demanded it. In 1900, New York politicians wanted to kick Governor Roosevelt upstairs to Vice President. Hanna lacked the political power to stop it. One of the leading powers in the conservative (and Rockefeller) faction of the Republican party, Hanna lost influence when McKinley was assassinated, replaced by the somewhat more progressive (Morgan faction) Roosevelt. (Hanna had known Rockefeller from high school.) Upon hearing the news, Hanna reputedly remarked that "Now that damn cowboy is president." However, Hanna and Roosevelt worked together (particularly on the Panama Canal) and although they remained personally cordial, they considered each another political rivals.
Hanna was expected to run against Roosevelt for the Republican nomination for president in the 1904 election. The rivalry was cut short by Hanna's death of typhoid fever, at the peak of his power, in February of that year. Hanna is buried in Cleveland's Lakeview Cemetery.
The Hanna Building on the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 14th Street in Cleveland bears his name.
Hanna was the father of Ruth Hanna McCormick.
References:
Croly, Herbert Marcus Alonzo Hanna: His Life and Work (New York, 1912)
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2004
Unfortunately, I have not gone to my coin chest to locate my lead Bryan lead dollar (see May 19,2004 post on this thread.)
I picked that token up along with this medal.
And here is one that got away.
link